is a Japanese social media and

video game company The video game industry is the tertiary and quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the development, marketing, distribution, monetization, and consumer feedback of video games. The industry encompasses dozens ...

with headquarters in the

Roppongi Hills Mori Tower is a 54-story mixed-use skyscraper in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Completed in 2003 and named after builder Minoru Mori, it is the centerpiece of the Roppongi Hills urban development. It is the sixth-tallest building in Tokyo at . The tow ...

Roppongi Roppongi (, , 'six trees') is a district of Minato, Tokyo, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, famous for the affluent Roppongi Hills development area and popular night club scene. A few foreign embassies are located near Roppongi, and the night life is popu ...

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. It has been operating the social network service GREE since its establishment in December 2004.

Etymology

The company name GREE comes from a hypothesis, Six Degrees of Separation postulated by social psychologist

Stanley Milgram Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American social psychologist known for his controversial Milgram experiment, experiments on obedience conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale University, Yale.Blass, T ...

in 1967. "

Six degrees of separation Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of "friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is al ...

" is a hypothesis that everyone is approximately six steps away from any other person on Earth. If a chain of "a

friend of a friend In sociology, a friend of a friend is a human contact that exists because of a mutual friend. Person C is a friend of a friend of person A when there is a person B that is a friend of both A and C. Thus the human relation "friend of a friend" is ...

" statements are made, on average, any two people in the world can be connected in six steps or fewer. The name symbolizes GREE's hope to "create and provide any new possibilities of the Internet" and to "create new forms of fun, convenience, and excitement."

History

* Feb. 2004: Release of GREE alpha to the public by Yoshikazu Tanaka as a personal hobby * Mar. 2004: Exceeds 10,000 users * Dec. 2004: Established GREE, Inc. * Nov. 2006: Launches EZ GREE (now au one GREE) as a

KDDI () is a Japanese telecommunications operator. It was established in 2000 through the merger of , , and . In 2001, it merged with a subsidiary named Au, which was formed through the merger of seven automotive and mobile phone companies from t ...

Mobile official service * Feb. 2007: Launches GREE as a NTT Docomo official service * Mar. 2007: Exceeds 1 million users * Aug. 2007: Launches GREE as a

Softbank is a Japanese multinational Investment company, investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services ...

official service * Dec. 2008: Listed on the Market of the High-Growth and Emerging Stocks * Apr. 2009: Exceeds 10 million users * Jun. 2010: Exceeds 20 million users * Jun. 2010: Listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange * Jun. 2010: Release of third-party applications on "GREE Platform" * Jul. 2010: Relocates Company headquarters to

, Tokyo * Nov. 2010: Announcement of investment in Project Goth, Inc. * Dec. 2010: Launches "GREE Platform for smartphone" * Dec. 2010: Exceeds 23.8 million users * Jan. 2011: Establishment of a subsidiary, GREE International, Inc. in the US * Jan. 2011: Acquisition of Atlantis Co., Ltd. * Jan. 2011: Announcement of business collaboration with

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...

* Apr. 2011: Buys US social mobile gaming platform

OpenFeint OpenFeint was a social platform for mobile games for devices running on Android or iOS. It was developed by Aurora Feint, a company named after a video game by the same developers. The platform consisted of an SDK for use by games, allowing i ...

for $104 million * May 2012: GREE purchased the mobile game developer Funzio for $210 million

Subsidiaries

GREE Entertainment

GREE Entertainment, Inc., formerly ''Funplex'', is an anime production and video game licensing company. It was formed on July 1, 2021 through a merger of GREE Inc.'s gaming and licensing divisions with Funplex.

GREE Studios

GREE Studios is a video game development studio founded on November 1, 2024 from a consolidation of WFS and Pokelabo's consumer (console and PC) games business.

WFS, Inc.

, formerly ''Wright Flyer Studios'', is a

live service game In the video game industry, a live service game (also referred to as games as a service, abbrevated to GaaS) represents providing video games or game content on a continuing revenue model, similar to software as a service. Live service games are ...

developer and publisher wholly owned by GREE Holdings. It was founded on February 21, 2014 by GREE director Eiji Araki.

Pokelabo

Pokelabo is a brand of WFS focused on live service game development. Founded in 2007, Pokelabo was acquired by GREE in October 2012 for $173.8 million. On January 1, 2025, Pokelabo was converted from a wholly owned subsidiary of GREE into a video game brand under WFS, with its game development business absorbed by WFS.

REALITY

REALITY, Inc., formerly ''Wright Flyer Live Entertainment'', is a live entertainment company specializing in

VTuber A or is an online entertainer who uses a virtual Avatar (computing), avatar generated using computer graphics. Real-time motion capture software or technology are often—but not always—used to capture movement. The digital trend originated i ...

s. Founded by Eiji Araki in April 2018, the company has operated the virtual live streaming app ''Reality'' since August 2018.

References

External links

*{{Official website, https://gree.co.jp/jp/en/ Mass media companies based in Tokyo Software companies based in Tokyo Mass media companies established in 2004 Japanese brands Japanese companies established in 2004 Companies formerly listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Internet in Japan Internet technology companies of Japan